Bowman's Hill Flower Sale 2014

Yesterday I visited the sping flower sale at Bowman's Hill Flower Preserve and came away with some plants:

• Polygonatum Biflorum (Solomon's Seal). I brought a few years back from the same place. It seems to be doing well, so I thought I should buy two more.
• Asarum Canadense (Wild Ginger). I planted this underneath the sad looking azalea which still hasn't leafed out. 2 plants. 
• Anemone Canadensis (Canada Anemone). I planted this by the back door. It is supposed to be a vigorous spreader and sounds like just the thing to cover the empty space in the shaded back area where it seems difficult to grow anything. 1 plant. 
• Trillium species (Trillium). At $15 a pot, this was the spendiest of the lot. I only brought one since I'm not too  familiar with it and am not sure how well it will do, but the flower on their sign seems nice.
• Stylophorum diphyllum (Celandine Poppy). I was not expecting to purchase these and have never heard of them, but their pretty yellow flowers caught my eye as we drove by them along their driveway. I'm planning to plant these in front of the ferns by the back door. 3 plants.

It was really nice to visit the Preserve and see some of the spring flowers growing in their native environment. Anyone who is interested in gardening should get out to see some gardens as they are extremely useful in determining how a mature plant will actually look once they have filled in. I enjoy pouring over plant catalogs and imagining how the ones I like will grow in my garden, but their focus is usually on the flowers, fruits or vegetables. Nothing will give the gardener a real sense of size and habit as well as visiting a garden. Better than that, visit at different seasons when it is possible to see how they look during different seasons.

I also FINALLY planted the Lady Fern after soaking the bare roots for about 2 hours in water. It is in the back near the large stacked rocks where the ivy used to be. I moved the ivy to the new hosta bed, hoping that they will trail over the broken retaining railroad ties. The Tennessee Ostrich fern is currently soaking in a basin of water and will go in the back since they are expected to become very tall. I brought both varieties as bare roots from Home Depot earlier this year, so hopefully they are still alive. I'm not sure how the astilbes are doing. There may be signs of life from one, but the other two roots are not doing much of anything.

Since C moved the large clump of catmint from the front of the house to the space along the road, there was room for more plants in front of the house. I really enjoy going outside and picking fresh thyme for cooking, so I thought that it would be even better if I could also pick some fruits and vegetables as well.

I move the blueberry plant which was planted in a container by the back door to the front, where it can enjoy more sunlight and planted two hanging baskets with strawberries. A trip to Rutgers' annual spring flower sale yielded a Roma tomato plant which is now in the ground next to two spots of Bonnie sweet basil.

Along the road, there are some leaves which look different from the weeds that normally grow there. I hope that it is one of the foxtail lilies. There should be two, but if only one grows, I will still be happy since they sat around the house for a while before they were planted.

Spring Planting

Planted 3 Sarocococca humilis "Fragrant Valley" by the big bed next to the back door, as well as 1 Gaultheria Creeping Wintergreen. The Hydrangea macrophylla "All Summer Beauty" is now a few feet away from the propane tank in the back and takes up the empty space near the downspout.

Tristan strawberries were planted into 2 hanging baskets. There are 3 plants in each basket.

Lenten Rose "HGC Jacob" was planted near the backdoor in the bed on the other side of the bathroom.

Two azaleas were moved to the area behind the house close to the wild daylilies. The white azalea was tossed out. There was a funny little wormy thing which caused me to worry about its condition. In addition, when I snapped a stem to check if it was still alive, the core of the stem was not green.